JERUSALEM, Friday, May 13, 2022 (WAFA) – Israeli police today attacked the funeral convoy of slain veteran Al Jazeera journalist as Palestinian mourners carried the journalist’s coffin on their way to the church.
A sizable Israeli police force cordoned off Saint Joseph Hospital, where the body of Shireen Abu Akleh is kept, setting up barricades at the hospital entrances and along the roads where her funeral procession is pass, not allowing Palestinian vehicles or pedestrians to pass.
Mounted police on horseback and scores of heavily-armed police afterward stormed the hospital premises and attacked dozens of mourners who were shouting slogans condemning the Israeli occupation and raising Palestinian flags.
Police attacked with clubs the youth mourners insisting on carrying the coffin, draped in a Palestinian flag, on their shoulders to the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin in the Old City, where her funeral is set to take place, beating them mercilessly and showering them with skunk water before ultimately allowing a funeral vehicle to carry the coffin without being accompanied by the extraordinary number of mourners.
Dozens of youths suffocated from tear gas inhalation, bruises, and fractures.
Police also prevented young men from hanging up Abu Akleh’s picture along with banners condemning her killing at the external walls of the church.
Thousands of mourners are attending the funeral service, before Abu Akleh is taken to the Mount Zion Cemetery, where she will be buried alongside her deceased parents in the next few hours.
